After reading the text, Jack had shut everyone out for a while. He stayed home from school and only came out of his room for food and bathroom breaks. He had gotten texts from his friends, including David, but didn't reply.
It was a rough week for everyone in the house. Medda and Crutchie had tried to talk with Jack every day after the breakup, doing things like knocking on his door, sending him texts, talking to him on the rare occasion he left his bedroom, but there was no luck for anyone with him.
It had been a week and a half since the breakup, and Jack was starting to recover. It was Saturday now. Jack walked down the stairs to the kitchen, and was greeted by Crutchie.
"Hey, Jack," Crutchie said softly. "How are you doing?"
Jack shrugged. "'Betcha you can guess." He opened a cabinet, pulled out a box of crackers, and sat at the table.
The two sat silently for a moment. After locking himself in his room for a week and a half, Jack wanted to speak, but felt there wasn't anything to talk about.
"Y'know, Jack," Crutchie started, "The guys miss you. They been wonderin' how you been."
"Do they know?" Jack asked. "Like, about Amelia?"
Crutchie nodded. "Whole school does. You know her."
Jack nodded and sighed. "'Course. Why wouldn't she have spread it all over, it's Amelia."
"You know about Estella?"
"Estella?"
"She posted a picture on her Instagram a few days ago," Crutchie said, pulling out his phone. He took a moment to find the post. "Caption was, 'Goodbye to the sweetest treasure in all of France! I will miss you dearly!'"
"Lemme see." Jack reached his hand across the table. Crutchie put his phone in his hand.
Jack stared at the post in disbelief. It had a photo of Amelia and some other girl, smiling at the camera in the first post. The photos looked more or less the same as he flicked through them, all but the last photo. The last one showed Amelia and the other girl kissing.
"She already moved on," Jack said in disbelief. He passed the phone back to his brother. He stared at his hands, clenching them into fists.
"Jack?" Crutchie asked. "Are you alright?"
Jack stood up, shoved his chair under the table, and stomped his way upstairs.
Jack had time to cool off. He made it to school every day of the week so far, but he avoided his friends when he could. He asked Crutchie to let the others know that he wanted some time to himself, so they backed off most the time. They all were very worried about him, though.
Today was a Wednesday, so it was a workday in his history class. It was also a day that he would be meeting with David to work on their project about fear.
David always arrived a couple minutes late, since the class he had before tended to keep him late. But this time, he was there way before class was supposed to start.
Jack entered the classroom, surprised to see David already there. He walked to the table David had claimed. He set his bag down on the ground next to his chair and sat down.
"Hey," David said. "How're you holding up?"
Jack shrugged. He kicked his feet up on the table. "You're here early."
"Last class was canceled," David said. "Teachers had a meeting."
"Ah." Jack pulled his phone out and started playing games, and David worked on his schoolwork.
